I was in class on Saturday thinking about how nice it would be if an article of mine on edonn.com was used as a piece of “teaching material” – i.e. quoted in class, or perhaps in the lecture notes.

It was then that a recollection of “some saying” hit me, something about the aim of a teacher is to have students surpass him or her in skills. Well, a Google search has just confirmed I was imagining such a saying (apparently teachers don’t really care about students surpassing them in skill.)

But I did come across a Chinese saying that goes like this: 青出于蓝而胜于蓝qīngchūyúlánérshèngyúlán, which literally translates to “blue comes from the indigo plant but is bluer (vivid) than the plant itself.”

Two things I learned: that the Chinese have some very nice and poetic sayings (well, I’ve actually known this a long time); and that I want to be that teacher who seeks to have students whose skills surpass mine.

I’ve always dreamed of having a team of data workers (data-analysts, engineers, scientists) working under me technically more skillful than me, even when hired they may not have been so. To build a Manchester United of data science within the company (my dear employers, are you reading this? Excited?! I am.)

…is that amateurs practice till they get it right, but professionals practice till they can’t get it wrong.

I love that quote.

Reminds me of how I push myself to obtain my IPPT golds. In the months leading up to it, I’d train like I was training for the Olympics. During the test days itself, even if I was tired or sick or just not feeling quite up to it, I’d still manage the gold.

There’s a saying I’ve heard many times that goes something like this: what gets measured gets done.

And though I completely agree with that saying, I think it misses a crucial point: that before measuring anything, we have to make sure that what’s getting done is what you want to get done.

After the army started testing for push-ups in their standard physical fitness tests, I started training for it. After they stopped testing for pull-ups, I stopped training for it.

I now do 50 push-ups without too much difficulty. I used to struggle at 30.

I now do 8 pull-ups with difficulty. I used to be able to do 12 with both hands tied behind my back.

Both were intended to act as proxies to my fitness. So, can someone tell me: am I less fit or more?

To answer that question, I propose we ask two further questions, the answers of which will then determine the answer:

What’s the definition of fitness?

Which exercise, pulls-ups or push-ups, is more closely correlated to that definition?

It would be great if fitness could be measured directly, but t can’t. So we use proxies or indirect measures such as pull-ups, push-ups, or running times to help approximate it. Sometimes these proxies make sense, but sometimes (many times) they don’t (e.g. how high or far you jump is often used as a proxy for fitness, but it’s actually probably more technique than anything else).

Proxy measures are used all the time in business as well: the performance of a business is often measured via financial proxies (revenue, costs, profit) and these often make sense – when there’s no profit for too long, companies go bankrupt and fold.

But many companies don’t stop there (nor should they). Things like staff turnover, lead times, number of customers and more are also used as proxies as well to determine if a business is “doing well”.

I do worry sometimes though, that in our quest to measure everything in order to understand where we’re at and seek “improvement” in some process or activity, we forget to ask what our true end-goal is (the formal definitions of what we’re trying to achieve), and whether or not the measurements we have in place are truly correlated to that goal.

What does it really mean for a business (or business unit or employee) to be “doing well” (in the context of this organisation)? And are the measures we have in place to measure if the above are “doing well” really correlated with what we have define as “doing well”?

Because if we don’t, we could well be working hard at improving the proxies without improving anything of real value.

Yesterday, I gave a presentation for a group assignment in my Master’s class. It was exhilarating and a whole lot of fun, despite (or perhaps because) of the fact that we had overrun our stipulated time and I had to go really quick, determining what could be skipped and what could not on the fly.

I’ve been told before that I can speak pretty well in front of groups. That doesn’t mean that I speak well in front of groups all the time – just that I can. In general, though, I think I get more hits than misses despite the occasional public speaking duds.

But it wasn’t always this way. I used to be quite the nervous wreck at speaking (and not just in public!)

Two Years at Study Group

The first of June marked my two-year anniversary at Study Group. I remember when I had just begun my role, I had to make lots of calls colleagues in the UK, Australia, and North America.

These calls, despite the audience of just one or two always scared me. I was uncomfortable, constantly nervous, and largely unsure of myself and what I needed to say. I suppose my status as a n00b didn’t help matters much. I remember writing scripts — yes, you read that right: scripts — to help me through these calls:

Hi, good morning [insert name here]. How are you?

[Wait for reply]

I’m good, thank you. So as mentioned in the e-mail, [insert name here] thought that it was worth the both of us having a chat on [purpose of call].

[Wait for reply]

And so it went.

I would have this script open in front of me, on my computer screen, while I talked, often following the script verbatim.

The notes

In the beginning, these scripts consisted of long paragraphs of text. It didn’t work very well. I would often get lost in the words and lose my train of thought. Sometimes I’d be unable to recover my position, skipping to where I thought I was at, only to realise at the end of the call that I skipped the most important points.

I improved this somewhat by breaking my scripts into bullet points. I also made it a point to internalise the “how are you / good, how about you?” introduction, which before moving to Study Group I had actually never used (it’s become second nature to me now).

Bullet points were good, but I was still occasionally getting lost in the text. So I started marking out text in different colours, fonts, and sizes. That worked really well, and so I stuck with it.

Problems arose when I started having to speak in meetings in which I had to present my findings. Sure, I could have read from a script, but it’d have looked ridiculous – who reads from a script during a meeting?

Scripts were still prepared, but I devoted more time to memorising them. During meetings I’d have very small print outs discretely tucked in between pages of my notebook; or, if using my notebook computer, I’d have the script open in a small window with font size so small only I could see it.

This worked well, but it wasn’t sustainable. How often could I rely on scripts? Unscheduled conversations were going to be had, and in fact had already been had; and in cases like these, where was I going to find a script? In the conversations that had already been had, I floundered.

Developing Expertise

Over time, as I grew into my role, I developed a greater understanding of the business and the areas in which I was expected to be an expert on.

I made an effort to anticipate questions and to anticipate what answers people expected me to have. With experience, I was far better able to understand what I needed to know and what I didn’t. My scripts turned into notes, no longer verbatim but summarised and taut.

As I participated in more calls and meetings, as well as the occasional conference (and watched more TED Talks!), I also developed a good feel for what it was like to be a good speaker. I took notice of how people presented, and made notes of what worked and what didn’t.

I started applying some of these things and experimenting.

Increasing Engagement

For a recent example, in one of my duds (a series of conference calls over the week during which I conducted distance training), I realised people weren’t really engaged but I wasn’t sure why.

That weekend, not quite fully recovered from the lack-of-engagement sadness, I had class. During class I watched as the lecturer taught, looking at how my classmates were responding, looking for clues as to what engaged people and what put them off. What I found was that the presentation of case studies, interesting case studies, were always high engagement moments, while explanations of theories were almost always low engagement moments.

Back at work, I wrote into my Evernote notes the to-dos for my next training calls: “More case studies; tie back to participant’s actual work. Build theories into case studies.”

In my next series of training calls, I did just that: I built in the theories I needed to teach into interesting and real-life case studies, and there was far more engagement and positive feedback.

No Notes

Back in the early days, while in school, I used to hold prepared notes in my hands while giving presentations. These were very much like my verbatim scripts I had in my early Study Group days (I suppose the scripts were just a natural extension of my presentation notes).

I remember my hand trembling with nervousness, with the piece of paper with my notes seemingly trembling even more – not sure if anyone noticed but I sure did.

These days though, I don’t use notes. It helps with the trembling: even if my hand does tremble, without a piece of paper it’s far less obvious. I also realised that without notes, the presentation goes far more conversational; it’s less a speech and more a “hey buddy, let me tell you what I know and you let me know what you think” conversation.

But to present without notes doesn’t mean you don’t prepare the notes. In all my presentations I always have copious amounts of notes, some mental some not, that give me direction as to what I want to say.

I always walk through the slides (if I’m using slides) and anticipate questions (I’m the expert so I better play the part). I make sure that anything I’m presenting I’m 100% sure. If I’m not sure of it, I make sure that I either (a) take it out, or (b) learn enough of it till I’m 100% sure.

The thing about presentations and public speaking is that if you’re sure of the material, nervousness often melts away into excitement and the only anxiousness you’ll face is anxiousness to get your message out.

When you’re sure of the material – no ums, no ahs – you’ll naturally feel confident, and with confidence your material will appear more convincing.

Don’t tell anyone I told you this but…

I suppose I should let you in on a little secret: sometimes I’m not entirely sure of my material despite spending hours researching the topic and “selling the ideas to myself”. Sometimes it’s just not possible.

But during these times, I still stick to the no ums no ahs rule. When you appear confident of your material, that’s often enough to pull off a very convincing presentation.

Skeptics often will wait till the end of the presentation to ask you the tough questions, because even if they were 100% sure of thinking the opposite of what you were talking about, your confidence would make them only 60% sure, enough to make them not oppose you then and there.

When they take their questions “offline” (i.e. after the presentation), it give you more time to think of a rebuttal if necessary. Even if you concede to their argument, it’s far less public and you have more time to think about lessening any negative impact.

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My name is Donn (not a typo, that's two "n"s!) Lee (of Singapore), and you’ll find me working at the intersection of business and information technology. I'm also an avid runner, reader, writer, and listener of music (anything that suits my mood). Read more about me in my About page.

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